Bucket attachment devices which mount to a bucket of a loader are well known. Generally speaking, these attachment devices comprise a working portion which serves at least one of a variety of purposes, such as that of a fork for transporting material or a hitch for towing, as well as a mounting portion for attaching to the bucket. The bucket of a loader commonly has a blade extending laterally thereacross suited for slicing objects or digging into the ground.
Typically, the mounting portions of these attachment devices include: (i) a clamping mechanism arranged for clamping to the bucket at an inner surface of the bucket and a bottom surface of the blade; and (ii) a retaining mechanism arranged for fitting over the blade so as to resist movement in a longitudinal direction of the bucket generally from a rear flat surface of the blade towards a tapered edge of the blade. The retaining mechanism typically includes a fixed surface for butting engagement with the rear flat surface of the blade; however, the blades for buckets of loaders can come in different sizes, especially in terms of width as measured generally between the rear flat surface and the tapered edge. As such, one potential shortcoming of the attachment device with the aforementioned fixed surface is that the device fits only a specific blade width and is incompatible with blades of other widths.
The applicant provides a unique solution that may overcome the potential shortcoming of known constructions of bucket attachment devices.